Title

Author

Date of Award

Summer 7-16-2015

Degree Type

Capstone

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Professional Writing (MAPW)

Department

English

Co-Chair

Dr. Sergio Figueiredo

Co-Chair

Dr. Margaret B Walters

Abstract

“People who live entirely in the fertility of their imaginations are fascinating, brilliant, and often charming, but they should be sat next to at dinner parties, not lived with,” wrote Frances Scott Fitzgerald Smith, affectionately known to her close friends and family as “Scottie,” in the 1965 introduction to a collection of her father, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, letters to her. With twenty-five years of hindsight chasing her down a highway of family legacy, Scottie offered a brief glimpse into her childhood—a subject she avoided discussing with anyone, including her own children. Even rarer, according to her daughter, Eleanor Lanahan, were the few moments Scottie allowed herself to feel the immensity of a childhood lived as “the daughter of F. Scott Fitzgerald” and to recall the painful discord of her schizophrenic mother and controlling, insecure father. She was born in to a world of imagination, excess, and privilege that often cast her as a supporting character in the tumultuous tabloid legacy of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

Recommended Citation

Roberson, Melissa K., "A Few Slices of Pie: The Life and Legacy of Scottie Fitzgerald Smith" (2015). Master of Arts in Professional Writing Capstones. 10.
https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/mapw_etd/10